


Hymn for the Exiled

by AceQueenKing



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22597144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Persephone knows the boy will fail.But this knowledge does not make watching it happen any easier.
Relationships: Eurydice wife of Orpheus/Orpheus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 85
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Hymn for the Exiled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nothingbutregret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutregret/gifts).



“My lady,” says Orpheus, the blessed son of a muse. He is humbly prostrated at her throne. Everyone in the underworld stops and watches the boy: living musicians are a novelty in this place. Hades’ eyes remain on the boy as well; his expression is wariness, not curiosity. Orpheus is wise in which monarch he chooses to plead to.

“I have come to ask you a favor. I fear it is – a large favor. My wife, she is parted from me…” The boy is desperate; she sees this in him. Every half-divine inch of him is quivering for resolution, and she thinks: it is unfortunate. He is born a man, but his god-blood makes him love like a immortal. The divine love in the boy’s heart cannot handle death. None of their kind can, but for herself and her consort.

“A pity,” Hades says, dryly, and she knows Orpheus’ opening line is, for him, an itchy reminder of his own custody arrangement. Hades knows what is to be separated.

“Please,” Orpheus shakes, so distraught is he. Her heart breaks for this poor boy. “I have – I do not have many gifts to give, I fear…”

“We are not much prone to bribery,” she says; there is little one could give them that they did not have.

Still, Orpheus offers his song.

It is a beautiful thing: an elegiac masterwork that aptly covers the first notes of love-swept crescendos bursting into being, and the funerary dirge of a whisper that marks the end of his sweet, young love. It is beautiful, and terrible. There is no off note, there is no doubt of his sincerity. His playing is flawless. His love is true.

There is not a dry eye among her subjects. Even she is moved to tears, blossoms of sweet carnations that fall from her eyes and drift low to her feet. “Please,” he says, “please.”

She looks to her husband. He looks back. He is the only soul not crying. He looks at her, shakes his head slightly. She knows what he is saying is: _I cannot. It is beyond the scope of our duties_.

She raises her eyebrows, lightly holds out her hand to point to their subjects. _Look around. You have little choice_.

The underworld is his by right, but it matters little; there are always a hundred gods or demi-gods, each looking for respectability. Being heartless to Orpheus may well convince someone to try to usurp Hades and herself, with emotions running high.

And her husband knows what happens to usurped rulers.

She places her hand on Hades thigh. “Let him try,” she says.

And so he does. He nods to her and gives Orpheus his directions: back now, with Eurydice behind. The fates hum with curiosity; such has not been attempted before, and likely never will again.

Some will say Hades offered to let the boy go in deference to her. Others will say Hades own heart was touched.

Neither is true.

Hades let the boy go because it was too risky not to do so. That is the only thing that moves his heart, beyond her existence: logic is his sword, probability his shield.

The logic is not simple enough to be grasped by demi-gods and mortal men, but easy enough for her kind: Hades can’t afford to lose a soul, but he can’t afford to outright refuse Orpheus’ request, either. Too many souls have been moved; Hades is immortal but he is _not_ impervious to harm. She has bid the two to go, and her husband, as always, has found ways to tip the situation in his favor.

“Let us retire,” she says, softly, touching the rich brocade of his sleeve. She does not want to watch the court react to the boy's turn, and she knows from the discordant hum in her ears that surely that is what will happen. The fates do not speak in the human tongue but their song-chant does not lie.

He must hear it, too. He wordlessly stands, and she follows him down the long path to their private apartments. His only, once; now shared. She’s made her mark on the territory, her hearty _pothos_ spreading slowly over what were once his rather spartan tables.

“Do you that they will make it?” She asks after he closes the door. She already knows the answer, but she needs to hear it from his lips. He turns toward her and looks _old_ , ancient. He shakes his head.

“Do not ask things,” he says gently, “that you already know.” The gentleness does not make it any less horrible, and he knows it is horrible. She wishes he would fold her into a hug. He does not. Instead, he taps her shoulder lightly. He is a cold man, her husband; still, he reaches out for her. It is an effort, for him, she knows. He is not a god often moved to pity.

“Why?” She asks, feeling sorrow in her heart; she does not cry, for she is numb to tears in their quarters. Or tries to be such, anyway.

“Do not ask such things,” he says, still gentle, his hand thumbing through her hair. “You already _know_. A mortal soul has entered. A mortal soul does not leave. Even among the immortals…” He pauses, lets it hang, as they let Orpheus’ hope hang. The fates sing Eurydice’s song in all the wrong notes – too harsh, too discordant.

“You are the exception,” he concludes, somewhat hesitantly; she can sense the bitterness in his speech there, that it is not an exception he would have charted for her. “There will be no others.”

“I want to see,” she says; she sees in his wince that she wishes she would not, knows that it would be kinder if she did not. But Persephone, too, is a cold woman; the Praxidike ensures justice. A boon for a carefully followed instruction; destruction for a mistake. “I want to see, Hades.”

He concedes. “Then we will watch together.”

They do. They sit, both third eyes turned toward the boy now walking through the darkness of their land. He is moving at a good clip through the darkness. She allows hope to build in her chest, thinks: the stakes are higher for Orpheus than they are for her. Her husband’s hand holds hers, always steady; that is her husband, she thinks. Ever steady. He has lived through horrors beyond the telling.

There is comfort, in that.

Still, she feels tension in her bones with every step Orpheus takes. “He has not turned yet,” she says, knowing he will. The fates sing, and sing the story true: a soul has come to the underworld. A soul has been claimed here. A soul will not return to the world of the living.

“Yet,” her husband says. “Only yet.” He glances toward her, tightens his hand around her own. Only one who has eaten the fruit of the dead has ever been able to climb above. Her husband knows this as much as her, and yet: she hopes, for Eurydice.

She hopes.

She keeps watch. Orpheus steps. Every step he makes, her chest tightens. At the steps now, not much farther. She glances at her husband from time to time – he is serene, quiet. She finds it comforting, slightly; Hades is a cold man. He is moved so rarely by anything but cold logic. Even Orpheus’ song only politically inconvenienced him; she knows this, and yet, in the moment, she would give anything to feel that sereneness, to not feel discordant fate’s dire notes stir within her heart.

“Please,” she says, soft, under her breath. She doesn’t know why she asks – he cannot change the ruling. Even if he wished to. He looks at her – not angrily, for though he is a stern god he is not cruel – with his brows knit together, an emotion she has trouble reading. He could be puzzled. He could be confused. But then, his hand slides from her hand to her shoulders.

“I am sorry this pains you so,” he says, voice gravel-deep, but as soft as he can make it. “We can stop watching.” He listens to the hum of the fates; discordant, the song they are knitting is coming to a head, soon. The notes are wrong. No matter how carefully Orpheus steps, the notes are wrong.

Persephone sheds one god’s tear. It sparkles as it falls into her breast, lighting into a rose-vine, thick with thorns. She tries to keep her emotions under control; struggles.

“How can you stand it?” She whispers.

“It is what it is,” he says, serenely. It is a phrase he is fond of, and one she is not; it was what he said to her once, long ago, in far different context: _It is what it is. Your father has given you to me; do not waste time indulging in any sorrows._ He has always been this way, will always be this way. She has come to love him regardless.

Still, in the moment, watching Eurydice being ripped away from her world, as Persephone was from hers: the phrase brings her only sorrow.

That is the problem of the gods: They do not change. Eternity does not give room for growth. She is sure that, for him, it is a struggle to deal with her own moodiness, for springtime always comes with plenty of thunderstorms.

Orpheus, perfectly human and perfectly frail, is on the last step of the underworld. She watches, and he watches. The musician closes his eyes, takes a steadying breath.

Hades squeezes her shoulder. He is not unfeeling. But his face remains impassive. She focuses on Orpheus, breathes. “Don’t, boy.” She is young enough to still want to believe, even knowing how it ends. Orpheus step waivers. The fates’ song reaches a fever-pitch, so high and shrill that she wants, more than anything, for it to stop.

Orpheus moves very slowly forward. He hesitates.

She looks to Hades, his face serene as Orpheus turns and the underworld takes its due. Her husband does not shudder. He does not shake. She hears Eurydice’s soft gasp of surprise, feels the addition to their domain. She must gasp too, for Hades presses his forehead to hers in unusual comfort. Eurydice’s second reaping takes only seconds.

It feels like an eternity.

Another downside of being born divine: when all of eternity is in your grasp, time is a nebulous concept. Seconds last days; centuries, minutes.

“It is done,” she says, soft.

“Yes.” He strokes her shoulders, exhales. She suspects he is happy it is over. “It is what it is.”

“How can you not feel sad over this?” She whispers; he looks at her, head tilted. He does not understand. He never will. And as much as she envies the stone-cold placidity of her husband, she is sad, too, that he cannot be swept away as easily as she can. 

“Eventually, he will join her. His eyes flex upwards and she knows what he is doing; calculating what remains of Orpheus’ mortal days. “Sooner rather than later.” He puts his hand over hers then in what she knows he means as a comfort. “They will not be parted then. Perhaps in that sense, they are lucky. They will never endure what we…” He fades off, looks away. Both are atypical actions for him. “Well.”

He does not apologize for what he did to her, once, long ago now. He does not say he regrets the method he choose to make his marriage, or the compromise that has come to define it. He is a god who is incapable of voicing such things.

But for the first time in many years, Persephone wonders, as she takes in the sight of her husband, nervously flittering with the elaborate sleeves of his garment, whether gods, too can change, whether Orpheus’ song had a more powerful effect than thought.

Persephone folds her arms around her husband and smiles.


End file.
